Our Last Hope
by RagingContent
Summary: [Collection of AdminChicken/Haunted one-shots] Chapter 3: "Grayson, you need to wake up! He's only trying to distract you!"
1. The Downfalls of Looking Back

**This is from The Haunted, which is a Minecraft movie series by RejectedShotgun. GO WATCH ALL OF IT BEFORE READING THIS OR YOU WILL BE VERY, VERY CONFUSED!**

**NOTE: I originally published this first one-shot between Haunted 3/4. So there might be some stuff that's been disproven by the more recent episodes. Don't hate.**

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><p>Sometimes he remembered when he met his friend. It seemed so long ago, since he had lost track of time… Years, many years. Seven? Ten?<p>

Drake didn't know. But the one thing he did know, was that his best friend was gone. Gone like dew in the morning sunlight, like hope on a doomed quest.

_Why did you do it, Armen? Why did you have to sacrifice yourself for us?_

Drake hated to remember. But sometimes he had to, to remind himself what he was trying to rescue.

"_Screw it, I've had enough of this!"_

_The figure in the white armor charged, toward the white-eyed demon floating in the air. You could hear the desperation in his voice; he had obviously been tormented by Herobrine for longer than he'd have wanted to be._

_But then again, so had Drake._

Drake hated the pain of remembering him. But how can you not remember your best friend?

"_Armen, no!"_

_Drake ran forward, trying to save his friend, but Herobrine and Armen had both fallen off the ledge, straight into the lava below._

_As their Grayson walked up beside Drake, the half-enderman whispered, "He's gone…"_

He was gone. But not into death, as we had thought.

After that, Drake had left Grayson and wandered out of Ironport, into the wilderness beyond. He didn't think about going back. All he did was wander through the wilderness, trying to find a place for himself. But one question echoed through his mind.

Armen wasn't lost in death, he was lost in blood and shadow.

_Why couldn't it have been me?_

Drake could still remember when he had first learned that Armen was still alive.

"_You haven't heard?" The other traveler said, flicking her brown hair over her shoulder._

"_Heard what?"_

"_Apparently, there's this… _Thing, _that destroyed the village of Spruce Grove last week! The whole village was burned!"_

_That caught Drake's attention. "The whole village burned?"_

"_Yeah! Only one person got away, but they saw it. It had one glowing white eye."_

"_Glowing white eyes… But only one?" _Not Herobrine…

_Drake's eyes widened. "Or maybe, not all of him."_

Snapping out of Memoryland, Drake turned his head, glancing outside the window frames beside him. The windows had obviously been broken when Herobrine had attacked this old village, but Drake knew there had been glass there before. And maybe, if he'd had enough energy, he could have tried to repair the windows using magic.

Ah, magic. Such a useful thing, would you think?

Through the last four years, Drake had often wondered what would have happened if he'd known magic from the very beginning. If he'd known magic before Herobrine had started haunting them, would they have been able to stay safe, in their old house?

But unfortunately, he hadn't known magic yet. So he'd gone through all the trouble and pain of being tormented by Herobrine.

_Magic can't be useful if you don't know how to use it._

The half-enderman sat down on the window ledge, brushing away some glass shards. His feet hung over the edge, over the void of the cliff, but Drake didn't look down.

He looked at the sky, watching the moon trace its orbit across the sky. The stars seemed so distant and far away…

Like Armen's soul, lost in his struggle against Herobrine.

Drake still couldn't help but blame himself for it all.

_If I'd never met Armen, or bought the old house with him, or gone after Herobrine… Would none of this have ever happened? Or would Herobrine have stalked us anyways, knowing that we would do something to try to stop Him in the future?_

Unfortunately, Drake would never know.

"Armen, I know you can't hear me or anything, but… This is something I just have to say." Drake whispered.

"I'm sorry about everything. About having Herobrine follow me to you, about dragging you along to try and find Him. But what's hurting me the most… Is that you sacrificed yourself for me, knowing you would die, but you ended up much worse than dead.

"I'm sorry… For everything."

Drake got up, and turned back into the guardhouse where he and Grayson were staying for the night. But if he hadn't, would he have heard the strained whisper that was trying to reach him?

_"I should be saying that, Drake. It's not your fault, it never was... It was mine."_

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><p>Sometimes, Armen could hear what was outside, or even see hazy images. But most of the times, he was lost in darkness, trying to gather enough strength to fight Herobrine's consciousness.<p>

It seems like years since He merged with Armen, and maybe it had been. It could have been hundreds of years or two weeks, but Armen would never know. All he could do was fight the monster, alone in the darkness.

_At least I've kept Drake safe._

Armen could often tell what He was thinking about, and what He would do next. So, after Drake had taken part of His strength away from Armen's body, Armen could tell that He would be aiming for Drake next. As one last sacrifice for his friend, Armen had been distracting Herobrine away from him.

_Am I all that's keeping Drake safe right now? Because apparently, my brother hates him a lot._

Even when Armen could see through the darkness, it wasn't very inspiring. Most often, Herobrine would be in the middle of destroying a village, and all Armen would be able to see would be the pain and fear in the villagers' eyes as Herobrine struck them down. He would hear their screams, and he would try to fight Him. But of course, he never could; Herobrine would just shove Armen's willpower to the side, and continue the destruction.

Armen's struggles would make them both weak; but Herobrine always recovered his strength quicker than Armen would, and he would be back in control before Armen would even think of it.

Once, Armen had taken control. But he had been too late; the ruins of a destroyed village would already be crumbling around him, and the fires had only just been burning out as the sun was reaching the eastern horizon.

_Why do you do this, Collin? _Armen asked Herobrine through their telepathic link. _Why every single night?_

**What gives you the right to ask me?**

_Damn it, you monster! You take over my body and wipe out countless lives, but you can't answer a simple question?_

For a few moments, Herobrine remained silent, but Armen could tell that he was trying to find a convincing lie.

**To break you.**

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><p>Grayson was lying on the floor, across from Drake, watching his friend grieve.<p>

Even after four years, he could never stand the bloodshed of this world, so when Grayson found Drake, he thought he could be happy and lead a somewhat normal life. But when Drake proposed a quest to help free Armen, there was no possible way that Grayson could have refused without sounding self-centered. And why would he have wanted to refuse…

_I'm tired of all the bloodshed._

How true those words had been-they had summarized everything Grayson had been through in the past four years. And even before that; back at the oil rig, Grayson had been forced to have all of his coworkers and friends disappear one by one. The loneliness had been a burden then, but a blessing now.

The silence was free of fighting, and Grayson was glad for that. But the silence only brought back painful memories.

Like the last day.

_The door swung open, and a dark figure stepped inside, shaking the heavy snow off of his helmet. Obviously, it was cold outside. In the arctic, even a full day of the weak sunlight was a rarity, and it wasn't one that they'd found anytime recently._

"_Hey, Grayson!"_

_Grayson took off his helmet and glanced toward where the shout had come from. Another man was walking into the small entry room, rubbing his bare arms to keep them warm._

"_Come on, Grayson, close the door! We don't want _inside_ to be frozen like a popsicle too, do we? Especially since we can just go and do that outside?"_

_The blond laughed and elbowed the door shut._

_The other man smiled and readjusted the penguin hat on his head. "Well, anyway, do you know where Collin is? He said he was going to go help you out there, and he hasn't come back yet."_

_Grayson frowned. "I didn't see him there… But then again, I was inspecting the oil pipes for the past half-hour or so, so he could have gone to the oil drill after I left._

"_Why are you worrying, Luke? I bet he's just taking his time with the work, like always."_

_Luke still looked a bit worried, so Grayson laughed shakily. "Come on, let's get out of the cold room so we can, I don't know, _not _turn into popsicles like you said?"_

_Luke laughed. "Come on, then, slowpoke!"_

Collin had never come back, and Luke had disappeared the very next day.

Grayson had been alone at the base for three years before Armen and Drake had appeared, and he had waited another year after he passed through the portal to this place before the two had appeared again. The four years of loneliness after Armen had sacrificed himself had been even harsher.

And now, he was here with Drake, watching his best friend be sorry for himself. He couldn't even tell what was worse; the silence or Drake's sadness.

But that was when he heard the whisper:

"_It's not your fault, it never was… It was always mine."_

Drake curled up on the patch of floor where he had chosen to sleep, so he hadn't heard the ominous whisper. The half-enderman fell asleep a few moments later, but Grayson could tell that he himself was far from sleeping.

Heh, sleep was the one thing he needed but the last thing he was going to get.

Grayson was still awake even when the moon reached the western horizon and the sun started to rise. With a resigned sigh, he rolled onto his other side to face away from the window, and he tried to quiet his mind to fall asleep. It wasn't easy, but it's no different from our quest.

Our quest… End this nightmare, once and for all.

And Grayson fell into a restless sleep.

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><p><strong>I have a riddle for you.<strong>

_Wait, why are you talking to me? I thought that you were some mindless psychopathic killing machine who only saw me as an obstacle?_

**Well, that's true. I just thought you might be getting bored. Apparently, you don't like all this killing, and I don't see why.**

_Yeah, I wonder why not._

**Your sarcasm doesn't fool me.**

_It was never meant to. Just tell me the stupid riddle already._

**Impatient much, but… Whatever. Here it is. **_**There is a thing in which nothing is, yet it has a name.**__**It is sometimes quiet, but sometimes it is deadly.**__**It laughs when you fail, and it plays mind games.**_

_Well, it sounds a lot like you._

**You're more intelligent than I thought. Well done, puny mortal.**

_Yay, I did good. _Can I have my body back now?

**But not clever enough.**

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><p>Drake woke up in the middle of the night, shivering from the cold. It looked like it would be close to dawn, but the mage didn't know whether a new day was a blessing or a curse anymore.<p>

When life starts looking like a burden, you're obviously in trouble, right?

ButDrake wasn't giving up yet, and that was the point. He would make it through each day until he could free Armen from Herobrine's power. Armen was his childhood friend, and he would stop at nothing until they could be together _without_ Herobrine's evil spirit inside them.

Drake blinked sleepily again. _But obviously… That will only come after I get some more sleep._

So he fell asleep again, to a nightmare.

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><p><em>The three of us have come so far through Herobrine's tortures. Even though one of our number is possessed by our enemy, and the other has a scrap of His power inside him, all of our quests are the same. We have to defeat Herobrine.<em>

_Can we fight to save our souls?_

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><p><strong>I hope you all enjoyed :3<strong>

**-RC/Kittybrine**


	2. Don't Say It

**A short thing for all you Haunted fans. :3**

**NOTE: I wish I had come up with this, but the idea was actually Nick_Whitestreak's from the AdminChickens Enjin forums. I just edited it a bit...**

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><p>They always say not to say the name, because<br>Herobrine will come after you if you do.  
>Every time, every person.<p>

So I won't say it.  
>And I won't, ever.<br>Cause that would be my doom.  
>Really though, I won't<br>Ever, ever  
>Decide to say it.<p>

Death follows those who say it.  
>I for one know that.<br>And if I were to secretly say it,  
>My method would be a hidden message.<br>One would've guessed by now why this text is so strange. But  
>Never, ever, <em>ever<em>  
>Declare it openly.<br>Seriously. I don't want to see another person die.

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><p><strong>Please review! I'd like to know that I'm doing something good :)<strong>

**-RC (Nekobrine)**


	3. Wake Up

**So... This be a new story. Enjoy. **

**EDIT: I've rewritten a lot of this, because I felt like I messed up the first draft a lot...**

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><p>Grayson woke up with a horrible sense of dread, sitting bolt upright with his hand moving automatically to his chest, his thoughts moving as fast as his heart.<p>

_Why do I still feel like I have this weight on my chest? The truth won't hurt me, right? I already told Drake about how-_

_Oh, wait... Where am I?_

Glancing around, he finally realized that he wasn't in Drake's ancient house. He wasn't even anywhere remotely similar, but he still recognized it: it was a tall, thick forest, with many different kinds of trees reaching towards the sky. It was still night-there was no light anywhere nearby, except the stars-but Grayson had an unnatural sense that he _knew_ where he was.

And maybe he did:

_Wait-this is near the city where I once lived, in the Empire...? B-but how did I get here, and why am I here?_

First things first: he probably had to decide on a plan, to try to find his way back to the Red Keep.

_Probably'll be too risky to try asking for directions. Heh, my own fault, but anyway...  
>I think the best way to get back would be to find my bearings at the city, then travel toward the Badlands. Hopefully, when Drake saw that I disappeared, he didn't leave the house.<em>

The adventurer started sneaking forward, towards where he knew his old house had been. Even if he _was_ in the middle of the Empire, where everyone was supposed to be hunting him down, he still wanted to see where his house had been one more time. The place he used to call home.

The place where he'd lived, and the place he'd fled from when everything had gone wrong.

It wasn't long before he started seeing lights through the trees, glimpses of the flickering light of torches. Subconsciously, he started speeding up, somehow eager to see it.

He only stopped short when he saw that his house was still in a pile of charred ruins.

_What did I expect? That it would miraculously be fixed again, and that nothing had ever happened since I stole the dragon egg__?_

As he started thinking again, he got stuck on one thought.

_How did I get here in the first place? Either... Either I'm here in real life, or dreaming. And I know that I can't teleport like Drake, so-_

Seeing a flash of motion over his shoulder, Grayson turned, whipping out his weapon, and catching his opponent's strike on his own blade.

**So, you've caught on, mortal?**

Grayson stepped back, keeping his sword between him and Armenbrine. _Dear god, why is He invading my sleep, doesn't He do that enough to my waking world? _Dodging another strike, he attempted to jab at Herobrine's sword hand, but the dark lord had foreseen his strike-he easily parried it away.

The confrontation lasted for several long moments, a battle of swords and wits. Grayson's mind was a blur as he tried to keep himself from getting injured.

_Duck, parry, jab, dodge, parry again... Shouldn't this be harder?_

But in-between strikes, he had an idea. Dodging another of Armenbrine's attacks, he swung toward his opponent's hand again. However, the dark lord wasn't expecting for Grayson to change his target, instead knocking Herobrine's sword out of his hands.

As the sword clattered to the ground, Herobrine glared at Grayson with his white eye glowing maliciously.

**Your quest shall not succeed.**

The adventurer frowned. _And now, he suddenly wants to talk?_ "You're wrong. We _will_ succeed on our quest, Herobrine, and defeat you once and for all!"

**But what will you do when you cannot find all three?** Herobrine taunted. **Would you risk your whole life for this pitiful mission?**

Grayson was silent for a moment after Herobrine finished talking, but when he himself spoke, he surprised and scared himself when he knew he was telling the truth:

"Yes, I would! I would sacrifice my own life, if it meant that Drake could successfully defeat you, once and for all!"

Herobrine's narrowed, and he lifted his sword.

**Then I guess I have no choice.**

Grayson winced, bracing himself for Herobrine's strike, but it didn't come. Instead, the dark lord had lifted his sword toward the sky, like he was channeling some dark and sinister magic.

_Well... He probably is! Isn't running a great option right now?_

But Grayson's body wouldn't obey his mind, so instead, he backed up a few steps, ready for whatever Herobrine did next. Glancing over his shoulder, he searched for whatever nightmares that Herobrine might be summoning-

"G-Grayson?"

The adventurer looked back toward Armenbrine. He was down on one knee, gripping his head from pain.

_You can't fool me... Using Armen's voice won't fool me._

A split-second after thinking that, Armenbrine staggered back onto his feet. Grayson got ready to defend himself, until the same voice stopped him.

"Grayson, i-it's me. I'm in control again."

"Wait... That's actually you?" The blond lowered his sword. _Drake was right, Armen _does _have some free will against Herobrine! I didn't really believe him before, but..._

Armen glanced behind him and mumbled something under his breath.

"Uh, what'd you say?" Grayson said.

Armen looked back toward Grayson, the fear plain on his face. "Grayson, you need to wake up!"

"_What?_" Grayson asked. "What's going to happen?"_  
><em>

"Herobrine was only here to distract you, you're in danger! You need to-"

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><p>"<span><em>Wake<em>_ up!"_

With those words, Grayson woke to the sound of his door opening.

Luckily, he'd had the sense to keep his sword nearby, on the ground beside the bed. In one quick move, he grabbed it and glanced at the door.

One white eye glowed in the darkness.

"_Pretend you're still_ _asleep!_" Armen's voice rang in Grayson's ears, and the blond decided that that was a good plan. Still gripping his sword, he closed his eyes, instead listening to where the 'brine was. Hopefully, he wasn't making the worst-and_ last_-decision of his life...

_Wait... Wait... _Now!

He jumped out of his bed, swinging his broadsword in a wide defensive arc. Glancing at the face of the 'brine, he stopped with a small shout of surprise. He could recognize the brine a little too well.

Sure, the brine's one eye was still glowing white, but the other was shining purple.

"_Drake?_"

The half-enderman came back to his senses at that moment, sputtering that he didn't know what was going on. Grayson had been shocked into silence...

"W-wait... Why's your white eye glowing?!"

_Oh, this is very, _very _bad..._

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><p><strong>Review, please! I'd like to know if you all like these story ideas!<strong>

**ALSO: I'd like some prompts! Whether it be songs that you think fit the _Haunted _characters, or a quote, or even just one or two words. I'd love to know what you want to see next.**

**Hope y'all enjoyed!**

**-RC**


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